It’s the one on the left. We’re allowed any calculator that’s not programmable and cannot store text. The Elektronika can be programmed though it cannot store a program when turned off.
Nevermind the Casio’s ability to solve, integrate, derivate, deal with complex numbers and matrices and more
Now, I would certainly never do this, but almost all TIs that were allowed on SATs and other standardized tests had a program function. These programs didn’t necessarily have to run, you could just type whatever like a text file.
The proctors knew about this, and made sure everyone would clear their calculators memory before the exams, and go around to everyone’s seat and ensure they had a “memory reset” screen.
That’s all well and good; except TIs have an “archive” function. This allows a program to be stored through a memory reset, whilst still displaying the same screen.
As far as I’m aware the proctors never caught on to this. I only discovered it because I didn’t want to keep losing the actual programs I was writing in class.
If you can write and store an arbitrary program then it’s pretty simple to write a “program” that just prints out an answer key/cheat sheet on demand, which is generally the issue that these kinds of rules are trying to solve.
Having a tool that can solve complex problems and knowing how to use it is not an issue that needs to be solved.
They forced us to buy expensive graphing calculators for geometry, trig, and pre-calc in high school but we never used them to actually graph anything in any of those years. Didn’t even teach us how to use them or why they’re useful. But because I liked tech and was curious, I did learn TI’s specific flavor of basic because I got one. Ended up writing a program that just stored and printed out the formula we were studying because I always had trouble remembering them offhand. Used the program for reference during tests but in the end I don’t think it was really that wrong, because I’d have to know which calculations to implement based on the questions anyways. I think I lucked out growing up in the time that I did lol.
If you can program the solution on the old Elektronika in the time it takes to solve it on paper, I say you don’t need that university anymore.
